Since 2008, I have been visiting the school of Luke Bergeson – my Space Camp leader in 2007 and 2008.

He is such an inspiration to me – amazing educator of all ages. Ms Davis, the school principal is a wonderful leader and she loves when I come to visit. I always bring her tim tams. I have even had her participate in boomerang throwing competitions!

So today Mr B picked me up at 6 am and I went to school for the day. The students start to come into the classroom at 7 am and have breakfast. They begin working as well at this time.

They worked very hard on fractions and then went to PE and Music. All too soon they had more maths to do and then lunch.

Lunch in the cafeteria was nice. Mr B paid for my lunch! Then I taught the class. First we talked about my presentation about Australia. Then we painted boomerangs using dot painting methods, trying to show how Aboriginal people use this style. Then the fun – we went outside and threw boomerangs! Some people actually got theirs to come back!

All too soon, the students had made thank you cards for me and the school buses took them home. Some children hugged me and they all asked me to come back ‘real soon’. I believe some of the students will visit Australia one day. I hope to visit this school again very soon!

 

I think it is not enough just to visit Space Camp, but to also go into the community and share our teaching and cultures with others. It is uplifting and inspiring to go to a school here! Teamwork across the globe!

 

For all my mad scientist friends – a blog post for you!

A series of photos from the present exhibit at Space Camp. It is an interactive attraction where you have an Explorer’s Card and you move around through many different ‘stations’.

Probe Surfing? Extreme Bungee Jumping?  Laser Skeet Shooting? Which one would you choose? See if you can guess which one I chose. If you send your guess as a comment I will tell you what I did and then what happened!

The Hollywood activity was my favourite. Needless to say I got 100% in the test so you can imagine the level of understanding required – not like in Hakeem’s lecture on diodes :(.

Thanks to Penny, Kyle and Aspen! What a crazy night!

Well – tried taking photos – the players are so fast and we were behind the screen they kept slamming into it is a bit difficult!

They also had a wiener dog race.

Also the audience threw foam hockey pucks to win prizes! Luckily I was told to stand and hide!

Ice hockey – what an interesting experience!

Yesterday Major General Charles Bolden addressed an audience in the digital theatre in Space Camp.

He talked about the future of the NASA Space Program. He is the current NASA Administrator.

I gave him some tim tams and a boomerang. Hopefully he enjoyed the biscuits and did not try to throw the boomerang on his flight out of Huntsville!

We talked about Australia’s involvement in both the Apollo missions and also Curiosity on Mars. He knows a lot about Australia and visits family there as often as he can.

Some special people were there as well:

Michael Flachbart and Marcia Lindstrom as well as Patrick Scheuermann – the Director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

I publicly thanked Penny Pettigrew and Ed Van Cise for the wonderful experiences that had organised for me during my visits to the NASA facilities.

 

Thanks to Penny, went to Red Robin and had dinner with Penny, Kyle and Aspen.

Aspen is such a great kid!

Anyway, Penny and I then went to see ‘Elvis Lives!’

First time in 9 visits to Space Camp I have attended a show.

We found 4 Elvi – and NONE in FLIGHT SUITS!

Great show but most moving part was during the show they used footage of the Saturn V takeoff and the whole audience cheered! What pride they have about this monumental achievement. Brought tears to my eyes!

An excellent night and it brought back so many memories.

Yesterday met April Spinale from the Center of the Advancement of Science in Space. Took Hakeem Oluseyi with me. He is a great friend of mine. He is an amazing educator, a 2012 TED Fellow and he has been very busy making TV appearances about the incident in Russia last week.
Instead of going back to Kennedy I went with Hakeem to Florida Institute of Technology. He had lab classes to run and a lecture on diodes. I understood EVERY word he said and I just let him do the equations – didn’t want to show him how much I knew! 🙁
Today I got the Cocoa Beach Shuttle @ 4 am to the airport.
Penny Pettigrew picked me up from the airport at Huntsville.
We dropped in to Space Camp and I collected up stuff for my presentation to Aspen’s class. Went to early lunch at a Mexican restaurant with Penny and her mum. Penny took me on the grand tour of downtown Huntsville.
We then went to the school! Poor teacher – the students had a great time but they were VERY energetic by the end of my lesson. Hope the bribery with clip on koalas worked
Will post photos when I go back to my room in Habitat.

Roaming around saw this lovely picture of the ISS.

Saw Apollo 14.

Took in Hubble IMAX movie and then, well, what can you say?

I had to choose – Launch Pad or VAB???

So I bought an annual pass and did LP today and after my meeting tomorrow will do the VAB.

I am sure you would never think you could get so close to the launch facility. You are right. The tour guide was saying word has it that these tours will probably close in a few months, probably by the end of the year.

I have watched the launch but never would I expect that I could be taking photos of underneath the launch pad and the blast area.

The VAB is massive. The flag is 21 storeys high. The lines on the flag are wider than a bus and could fit 4 and a half buses on each one. Very hard to show dimensions when everything is built in the ‘land of the giants’!

The crawler tracks are wide. I tried to show how wide – the green bit in the middle – is between the tracks.

Used to take 5 to 6 hours to get a shuttle out to the launch pad. Apparently they would be out there for a month.

Happy for others to comment and add details!

 

Went to Seuss Landing, where Jenna and Celeste danced with the Lorax. You can see a roller coaster in the distance – that is the Hulk.

From there we went to Harry Potter World and rode the Dragon’s Challenge and selected the Hungarian Horntail. Lunch in the Three Broomsticks is a must – as is a glass of Butter Beer.

Spiderman ride was cool. The Hulk was better! You may be able to see how much fun it really was.

The forbidden journey in Hogwart’s is one of the best rides ever!

What a fun day!